


to places we don't know

by simplyclockwork



Series: natural progression [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, John Watson Has Feelings, M/M, POV John Watson, Series, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 19:29:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21361492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork/pseuds/simplyclockwork
Summary: “Grab me and hold me so tightly that I can feelevery inch of you pressed against every inch of me,press your face into my neck;squeeze me so tightly I feel likeour bodies are becoming one,and I can feel your chest shake inside of mine.I just need to be held by you”
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: natural progression [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538974
Comments: 12
Kudos: 80





	to places we don't know

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet 7 in a series of short fics I'm planning to write based on posts from the tumblr account affectionatesuggestion
> 
> The series will follow a progression into an established Johnlock relationship
> 
> title from lyrics to "You & I" by Local Natives

The case began, like any other, with a call from Lestrade and Sherlock’s excited, full-tilt run into the streets with John close behind, cold gun metal pressing into the small of his back. Sherlock studied the body, the arches of arterial blood upon the walls; frowned at Lestrade and noted the man likely would return to the crime scene.

Deductions led to speculation, and speculation led to plans, which resulted in them staking out the area into the dead of morning.

Sitting with his back against a concrete wall, John sipped at a thermos of tea that Sherlock ignored offer of. Shivering in the cold London air, they pressed their sides together and Sherlock rubbed his hands, creating friction between his own palms. They made soft small talk, and John snorted when Sherlock told him about the eyeball he had exploded in the microwave.

When a man stepped into the moment, they fell silent. Sherlock watched the figure with glinting eyes, and John tensed cold fingers around the butt of the gun at his side.

The shadowed figure approached the house; Sherlock leapt to his feet and the form jolted, turning towards them with a swift jerk of the torso. When the suspect took off on foot, they followed, Sherlock in an all-out sprint, John in his measured pace, gun pointed to the ground with the safety off.

The man disappeared around a corner, into an alley. Sherlock, ever overeager in the chase, hurtled around the edge of a building, John several feet behind and sucking wind. As Sherlock disappeared from view, a shot rang out in the heavy air. John felt like his heart stopped in the ensuing silence that grew beneath the cracking eruption.

Lunging into the alleyway, John ducked; rolled and pinned the man down with two rapid, efficient shots that incapacitated and threw him to the ground as a bullet slipped through the man’s upper thigh, and the other tore into his shoulder. Rolling to his feet, John darted forward and kicked the suspect’s gun beneath a skip, listening to it clatter against cobblestones.

Looking up, John found Sherlock sitting just inside the alley, hand pressed to his arm with a dazed look in his eyes. John hurried to him; knelt and looked into Sherlock’s face. He was pale, but no more than anyone in an un-fatal amount of shock.

“Sherlock.” John called, and the detective looked up at him. “Let me see.”

Sherlock obligingly lifted his blood-stained hand from his wounded arm, and John gingerly pushed aside the heavy fabric of Sherlock’s coat to find the bullet had barely grazed the detective; had scraped a furrow through light skin, drawing blood but missing networks of arteries and bone. Looking up, he saw it embedded in the alley wall.

Sighing his heavy relief, John smiled into Sherlock’s apprehensive face. “I think you’ll live,” He joked, gentle humour that did little to still his racing heart and the only-slowly ebbing panic in his chest. “Here—apply pressure.” He lifted Sherlock’s hand, pressing it palm-down over the sluggishly bleeding wound.

Sherlock nodded, looking past John to the form groaning and struggling on the ground beyond where they stood. John helped him to his feet and they walked to the fallen suspect. As they stood over him, John levelled his gun towards the man’s face when their attacker’s eyes darted between them, a plan of escape evident in the way he tensed his body.

“Don’t.” John snapped, just catching the way Sherlock’s lips twitched at the word.

By the time Scotland Yard pulled up, painting the scene with screeching tires and screaming sirens, the man had passed out from blood loss. John reassured Lestrade that he would live—he had aimed for incapacitation, not a trip to the morgue—but that an ambulance was needed.

“What about him?” Lestrade asked as Donovan and another officer cuffed the man and waved paramedics over. He nodded to Sherlock and the detective smirked.

“No need for an ambulance. My doctor will look after me.” He replied at the same time as John, who said:

“I’ll take care of him.”

The two looked at one another in a moment of surprise, and neither missed the other’s smile.

Lestrade, missing the moment entirely, nodded, his attention focused on the paramedics loading the man into the back of an ambulance.

“Good. Great. I’ll keep you posted.” He strode away and John busied himself with rubbing at an invisible mark on his arm, avoiding Sherlock’s obvious eyes on his face.

Back at their flat, John cleaned and bandaged Sherlock’s arm, hands sure and certain against bruised, bloody skin. As he finished taping gauze into place, he leaned back, looking at Sherlock with silence in his mouth. Seated on the couch, they sat across from one another, each with shoulders and bodies inclined towards the other.

John thought of the way his heart had paused in the fear of Sherlock lost, forever silenced by the suddenness of a bullet, and blinked a faint burning from his eyes.

“Sherlock—” he began and fell silent in surprise when Sherlock pulled him into his long arms; held John against his chest with his face in John’s hair.

With wonder in his head, John wrapped his arms around the other man; pressed his face into Sherlock’s neck and inhaled the scent of him, all adrenaline, sweat, blood, and heavy, heavy fear. Sherlock’s chest rose and fell with his sharp breathing, shaking against John’s, and they gripped one another with the strength of lifelines.


End file.
